Re: SQR - What is it?

From: Andrew Zitelli <zitelli_at_tus.ssi1.com>
Date: 1995/11/15
Message-ID: <48di4b$mh6_at_atlas.tus.ssi1.com>#1/1


magpie_at_netspace.net.au (Andrew Esplan) wrote:
> Someone recently told me about a product that they once used called
> SQR. They gave me the impression that it was good for batch
> processing and possibly also for procedural coding of reports. Is
> anyone able to tell me more about it and who it is supplied by?

SQR is a very powerful "reporting" tool. I use it to produce extremely complex engineering reports, which dynamically determine the tables to be queried, fields to display, report layout and more. Our Oracle database contains over 10,000 tables, very few of which have similar column names, data types or table layout. To help you understand my requirements, our company designs and manufactures custom IC's (often referred to as "computer chips"). We may perform as many as 600 different tests, each at varying conditions, on each new product. Test data for each product and test type is stored in its own database table.

SQR allows me to write a single report program, to calculate engineering statistics and print data from any combination of these diverse tables. We write one SQR program for each type of standard report (e.g., Test Data Summary). The users specify at run time, which specific products and test types are to be reported on. I will list some of the key features below.

For a full description of SQR, contact Management Information Technology, Inc. in Long Beach, California, USA. Their telephone is:

   (310) 424-4399 or toll free within the USA at (800) 366-6484 My sales rep is Jeff Fishman whose E-Mail address is: jefff_at_miti.com

The following is a list of a few of SQR's features that have proven valuable in our environment. This list is not intended to be exhaustive. SQR provides:

  1. The ability to execute SQL statements, including DDL, inside a "report" program. This allows us to create or drop views, indexes, etc. on the fly.
  2. SQR programs are not required to actualy print anything. We have written some SQR programs whose sole purpose is to execute SQL statements, computed at run-time. This has allowed us to execute the equivalent of "dynamic SQL", even under Oracle 6. For those using Oracle 7.1 or later, I find SQR is often easier to use than Oracle's built-in DBMS_SQL package, for one-time "dynamic SQL" requirements. (For "dynamic SQL" being used frequently, I tend to write stored procedures using the DBMS_SQL package.)
  3. The contents of each printed page can be generated in any order. In cases where a page of output is based on multiple queries, the page can be output in pieces. Instead of printing one line at a time from top-to-bottom, we often print out column and row labels, along with various statistics, before printing the detailed data on a page. This also lets us compute to page headers and footers, to include summary information about the page's contents.
  4. Queries, procedure calls, and SQL execution can be nested inside query loops. This has been critical to the types of reports we develop, to run against diverse tables.
  5. SQR supports postscript and ASCII output. The support for postscript allows us to draw lines, use shading, use different fonts, etc., all within a single report. SQR also provides some graphing capabilities, allowing graphs to be printed along with tabular data.
  6. SQR supports several databases on a variety of hardware platforms. We use it in conjunction with Oracle running under HP/UX and VMS. I know Sybase, Ingres and other RDBMS products are also supported.

I am sure there are other important features, but this is all I have time describe. If you have further questions, feel free to e-mail me directly. I hope this helps!

  • Andy Zitelli
Received on Wed Nov 15 1995 - 00:00:00 CET

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